2018 Chess Calendar

We’re going to be spoiled for chess in 2018, with the
Candidates Tournament in March deciding Magnus Carlsen’s challenger for a match
in November, while in September we have the 43rd World Chess Olympiad. The year
will of course be packed with other supertournaments and strong opens, with the
overlapping Tata Steel Masters (Carlsen, Caruana, Mamedyarov, Kramnik, Anand…)
and Tradewise Gibraltar Masters (Aronian, MVL, Nakamura…) ensuring the year
starts with a bang!

The calendar below features most of the big events in 2018,
but note that at the time of writing it’s unclear if some events will take
place (e.g. the Zurich Chess Challenge) or when others will happen (e.g. the US
and Russian Championships). We’ve added a list of such tournaments at the end.

Completed tournaments:

January 2018

January 13 – 28 | Tata Steel Chess | Wijk aan Zee, Netherlands

The 80th edition of the Dutch supertournament has pulled out all the stops to invite 9 of the world’s top 15 players, including the top three of Carlsen, Caruana and Mamedyarov and former World Champions Kramnik and Anand. Once again there are 14-player Masters and Challengers events, with two “on tour” rounds in Hilversum and Groningen.

Top 10 stars Levon Aronian, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and Hikaru Nakamura (the winner for the last three years) head the race for a top prize of £25,000 in the 10-round Masters. The women’s top prize of £15,000 has again attracted an all-star line-up, with defending champion Ju Wenjun facing competition from Alexandra Kosteniuk and the Muzychuk sisters. Hou Yifan plays in Wijk aan Zee.

February 2018

February 9 – 14 | Carlsen vs. Nakamura chess960 match | Bærum, Norway

This “unofficial chess960 World Championship” will see World Champion Magnus Carlsen take on Hikaru Nakamura over 16 FischerRandom games – 8 at a one-hour per player time control over four days, and then 8 blitz games on the final day.

February 20 – March 1 | Aeroflot Open | Moscow, Russia

The top section of the Aeroflot Open in the Cosmos Hotel in Moscow is known as the world’s toughest open tournament, with only players rated 2550 and above automatically allowed entry. Vladimir Fedoseev is the top seed as he tries to repeat last year's victory and again qualify for the Dortmund supertournament, but he faces tough competition from the likes of Vidit and Dmitry Andreikin.

March 2018

March 2 - 5 | Tal Memorial | Moscow, Russia

This year's event begins with a 3-day rapid supertournament featuring the following 10 players: Kramnik, Grischuk, Svidler, Karjakin, Nepomniachtchi, Mamedyarov, Nakamura, Anand, Gelfand and Dubov, with the latter making it through a qualifying event. For the blitz on March 5th those ten will be joined by more players.

March 6 – 14 | Reykjavik Open | Reykjavik, Iceland

The 2018 edition of the Reykjavik Open has been named the Bobby Fischer Memorial to mark the year in which Fischer would have turned 75. A Fischer Random Championship will be held on his birthday on March 9th, with the main open reduced from 10 to 9 rounds to accommodate that.

This year's supertournament is now a 10-player event that again features World Champion Magnus Carlsen and last year's winner Levon Aronian. The field is completed by Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Fabiano Caruana, Vishy Anand, Nikita Vitiugov, Arkadij Naiditsch, Hou Yifan, Georg Meier and Matthias Bluebaum. The live broadcast will be provided by chess24.

April 2018

April 2 – 10 | 20th Dubai Open | Dubai, UAE

April 11 - 14 | Chinese League (Rounds 1-4) | Shenzhen, China

The Chinese League is a 12-team double round-robin taking places over 22 rounds spread into 3-4 day sessions throughout the year. Each match takes place on five boards, with female players required to play on two of the boards.

April 17 - 30 | 49th Chinese Chess Championship | Xinghua, China

April 18 - 30 | US Championships | St. Louis, USA

The 2018 US Championships are again 12-player single round-robins, with a total prize fund of $294,000. The first prize is $50,000 in the open section, which again features the Top 10 trio of Hikaru Nakamura, Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So, and $25,000 for the women.

April 19 - 28 | Shamkir Chess | Shamkir, Azerbaijan

The 2018 edition of the Gashimov Memorial in Shamkir sees the return of World Champion Magnus Carlsen, who won the first two editions of the tournament. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov has won since, and also takes part along with the likes of Anish Giri and Ding Liren.

April 29 – May 1 | Chess Bundesliga Final | Berlin, Germany

The final three rounds of the 2017-2018 Chess Bundesliga are again taking place at a central venue in Berlin, with 16 teams fighting for the title and the all-star Baden-Baden (Caruana, Aronian, MVL, Anand…) again the favourites.

Tan Zhongyi, the winner of the last Women's Knockout World Championship and therefore the reigning champion, takes on Ju Wenjun, the winner of the Women's Grand Prix, in a 10-game World Championship Match. The first five games are held in Shanghai before it switches to Chongqing.

May 12 – 20 | Polish Championships | Warsaw, Poland

The 2018 Polish Championships are again taking place in the Warsaw Stock Exchange, with Kacper Piorun and Monika Soćko the defending champions, while this year both 2700 stars, Radek Wojtaszek and Jan-Krzysztof Duda, play.

May 26 - June 6 | Karpov Tournament | Poikovsky, Russia

The 19th edition of the Karpov tournament in the small Siberian oil and gas town of Poikovsky is a strong 10-player round-robin featuring Nepomniachtchi, Jakovenko, Vidit, Fedoseev, Artemiev, Gelfand, Korobov, Kovalev, Sutovsky and Bologan.

May 26 – June 5 | French Top 12 | Brest, France

May 27 – June 8 | Altibox Norway Chess | Stavanger, Norway

The 6th edition of Norway Chess will struggle to compete with the 5th edition, which featured the full world Top 10 at the moment the line-up was announced, but with Magnus Carlsen, Vishy Anand and Levon Aronian already confirmed it’s unlikely to disappoint!

June 1 - 10 | American Continental | Montevideo, Uruguay

June 12 - 16 | Your Next Move Grand Chess Tour | Leuven, Belgium

The Your Next Move rapid and blitz tournament is the first event in the 2018 Grand Chess Tour. The regular tour players are Anand, Aronian, Caruana, Grischuk, Karjakin, Mamedyarov, Nakamura, So and MVL, with Giri participating as a wild card. 9 rounds of rapid chess are followed by 18 rounds of blitz.

June 20 - 24 | Paris Grand Chess Tour | Paris, France

This rapid and blitz tournament is the second event of the 2018 Grand Chess Tour and is sponsored by Colliers International, Vivendi and DailyMotion. The 9 tour regulars will be joined by Vladimir Kramnik as a wild card.

The Biel Chess Festival is back to full strength this year with 2-time winner and World Champion Magnus Carlsen, 5-time winner Maxime Vachier-Lagrave and world no. 3 Shakhriyar Mamedyarov topping the 6-player field for the double round-robin. Hou Yifan won the 2017 edition of this traditional supertournament, which is also accompanied by a strong open.

The 9th edition of the tournament on the South China Sea island of Hainan is again a strong classical grandmaster event, this time featuring three Chinese players - Wei Yi, Yu Yangyi and Bu Xiangzhi - and five foreign players - Shankland, Duda, Fedoseev, Le Quang Liem and Vidit.

August 18 - 27 | Sinquefield Cup | St. Louis, USA

The 6th edition of the Sinquefield Cup is the 4th event on the 2018 Grand Chess Tour and the only one to feature only classical chess. It's weighted to be the last and most important qualifying event for the final, with 20 Grand Chess Tour points for outright victory rather than 13 elsewhere. It's almost managed to secure the participation of World Champion Magnus Carlsen, who looks set to play his last game against Fabiano Caruana before their World Championship match.

These two 12-player round robins will determine the 2018 Russian Open and Women's Champions. Peter Svidler won't be able to make it 9 titles, since he's commentating in St. Louis, but the line-up remains formidable: Andreikin, Fedoseev, Vitiugov, Jakovenko, Tomashevsky, Nepomniachtchi, Inarkiev, Kobalia, Dubov, Oparin, Khismatullin and Sarana.

September 5 – 15 | World Junior Championship | Gebze, Kocaeli, Turkey

September 11 - 14 | Champions Showdown: Chess960 | St. Louis, USA

Garry Kasparov returns to action to play a 20-game match against Veselin Topalov as part of the 2018 Champions Showdown. The other matches are Nakamura-Svidler, So-Giri, Shankland-MVL and Aronian-Dominguez. This time all the games are played using the Fischer Random or Chess960 chess variant, where the starting position of the pieces on the back ranks is randomised. Each match consists of six 30 minute + 10-second delay rapid games, with a win worth 2 points, and 14 5+5 blitz games worth 1 point.

The biennial team tournament is the chess world’s biggest celebration, featuring hundreds of 4-player teams and most of the world’s chess federations. In Baku in 2016 the 11-round opens were won by the USA in the open section and China in the women’s section.

October 12 – 18 | European Chess Club Cup | Chalkidiki, Greece

7-round team events are held in open and women’s sections and always attract strong participants from the various national team championships around Europe. World Champion Magnus Carlsen looks set to be the highest rated participant.

October 21 - 27 | Hoogeveen Chess Festival | Hoogeveen, Netherlands

The highlight in Hoogeveen this year will again be two 6-game matches. One is between 8-time Russian Champion Peter Svidler and US Champion Sam Shankland, while the other pits Dutch talent Jorden van Foreest against the dangerous Russian player Vladimir Fedoseev. Those matches will be accompanied by the traditional open tournament.

November 3 – 16 | World Cadets U8-U12 | Santiago de Compostela, Spain

November 4 - 14 | Shenzhen Masters | Shenzhen, China

The 1st edition of the Shenzhen Masters in 2017 was won by Ding Liren ahead of Anish Giri and Peter Svidler. The 2nd edition is again a 6-player double round-robin, this time featuring Ding Liren, Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Anish Giri, Yu Yangyi, Radek Wojtaszek and Nikita Vitiugov.

November 9 - 14 | Tata Steel Chess India | Kolkata, India

India's first supertournament in many years see will feature a format similiar to the Grand Chess Tour speed events, with three days of rapid followed by two of blitz. The line-up sees foreign stars Mamedyarov, Aronian, So, Nakamura and Karjakin take on India's Anand, Harikrishna, Vidit, Ganguly, Sarin and Praggnanandhaa. The total prize fund is $40,000.

November 10 - 11 | Schachbundesliga | Germany

The 2018/2019 season of the prestigious German Chess League starts on the weekend of November 10-11. 16 teams play each other over 15 rounds split up into 7 weekends, with many of the world's best players likely to be in action.

China's Ju Wenjun only recently won the Women's World Championship in a match, but her title will be on stake again as she competes, with no privileges, in a 64-player knockout to determine the new Women's World Champion.

December 9 - 16 | London Chess Classic | London, England

The 2018 London Chess Classic is a knockout classical, rapid and blitz tournament featuring the top four performers over the preceding four events of the Grand Chess Tour. It will determine the overall winner of the tour, and has a $300,000 prize fund.

It's now become a tradition to end the year with 3 days of rapid chess followed by 2 days of blitz to determine the World Rapid and Blitz Champions. The reigning champions are Vishy Anand in rapid and Magnus Carlsen in blitz.

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